Scott Co Pound, So Killy

Screengrab from the WJHL website showing puppies at the Scott Co pound.

Volunteers at Scott Co Animal Control in Gate City, Virginia are speaking out against the needless killing of dogs at the facility and the staff’s failure to work with rescues. But surprise! – only joking, there isn’t any surprise:

News channel 11 spoke with the Scott County Animal Control today and they say they’re not doing anything wrong.
[…]
Jake Dougherty works at Scott County Animal Control and he said they are following procedure. He said, “the required amount of time that we have to keep [animals] is 7 days if they don’t have a collar. If they have a collar, we have to keep them 10 days.”

In addition to following procedure, Scott Co AC is functioning primarily as a pet killing facility where 65% of the animals are killed. Volunteers say that sometimes adopters inquire about a pet only to be told the dog was already killed. So why can’t slack-ass adopters get on the ball sooner and get down to the pet killing facility to adopt while the dogs are still alive? Maybe it’s the hours, which the county’s website (which shows zero dogs for adoption) states are 8 – 12 Monday through Saturday.

Dougherty says additional staff would help. He said, “If we had a full-time employee … that would, I’m sure, double our chances of people coming in to see what we’ve got.”

Star light, star bright,
The first star I see tonight;
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight.

Gosh, if only Dougherty’s wish could come true, the dogs would have double the chance!

Scott County Animal Control actually already has 2 full-time employees, including Dougherty, along with one part-time employee.

Oh. So the dogs already have what – quintuple the chance of staying alive but are still being killed at a rate of 65%? But IF there is room and IF someone wants them, Dougherty says dogs might be allowed to live beyond the 7 days – up to a month even. Gee whiz! *kisses ring* Except when they aren’t:

Volunteers, like Billy Denton, said that just last month animals at Scott County Animal Control Shelter were killed too soon.
Denton said they’ve got “21 kennels there and there were twelve dogs at the shelter and 6 dogs were euthanized.”

Oh. Well anyway ho, hum:

Dougherty says euthanizing animals is part of the job. He said, “You have to distance yourself a little bit from the animals.”
“I can’t look at them the way that everyone else does because you’re not going to find homes for every animal,” He said.

So the dogs are killed by someone who doesn’t look at them like other human beings do because he considers killing them to be his job. That puts a swell image in mind for every poor dog who draws his last breath at the Scott Co pound.

One thing you can’t fault him on though is his logic. It’s absolutely correct that you are not going to find homes for every animal when you’re only open for 4 hours a day, sit around pining for a full time employee when you are one of the full time employees, don’t work with rescues, don’t market your dogs and don’t regard dogs like everyone else does. And you definitely aren’t going to find homes for dead dogs, which is what you make most of your live dogs into, because you think it’s your job.

2 Comments

But I’ll bet you money that the local powers that be are happy to back him up in all of this because “it’s a hard job, not everyone wants to do it” and they probably consider killing part of the job, too.

This attitude is not only lacking compassion, it’s woefully outdated. Killing WAS part of the job in 1952. Now it’s not. These guys need to either get their heads out of their asses or stand aside for someone who is willing to do things right.